Nazara Tech arm to acquire US-based Soap Central; stock soars 19% in 2 days

Nazara Tech acquires SoapCentral.com: Nazara Technologies share price rallied 15.5 per cent to Rs 805 apiece in Thursday’s intraday trade, having surged 19 per cent in two days, after the company’s arm announced acquisition of SoapCentral.com, a US entertainment content destination.

On June 5, Absolute Sports, the parent company of Sportskeeda.com and ProFootballNetwork.com, said it has signed an asset purchase agreement to acquire all assets of SoapCentral.com, a premier source of entertainment content in the US.

The transaction is for an all-cash consideration of $1.4 million and is expected to be closed in the next 30 days.

“The entertainment publishing industry is more than twice the size of sports publishing (Similarweb, 2024) and allows us a great canvas for expansion into multiple content categories. Having tested our content publishing and hyper-growth playbook with the acquisition of Pro Football Network last year, we are confident of scaling Soap Central in a very short time,” said Ajay Pratap Singh, chief executive officer, Absolute Sports.

At 11:30 AM, Nazara Technologies share price was up 15 per cent as against 1-per cent rise in the benchmark BSE Sensex.

SoapCentral.com’s acquisition bolsters Absolute Sports’ presence in the entertainment publishing sector in the United States. The company already operates a pop culture destination called SK Pop, that provides the latest news and trends related to K-POP (Korean Pop) and Korean media.

Absolute Sports is a subsidiary of Nazara Technologies and covers sports and esports subjects via its flagship brand Sportskeeda. This is Absolute Sports’ second acquisition in the US sports media market. Earlier in 2013, Absolute Sports had acquired a 73.27 per cent stake in US-based Pro Football Network LLC for Rs 16 crore ($1.82 million).

The United States will likely be the biggest market for Absolute Sports, accounting for about 69.1 per cent of the company’s revenues in FY24. Absolute Sports’ revenue from the region was at Rs 135.4 crore for FY24, as compared to the overall revenues of Rs 196 crore.

Meanwhile, in the January-March quarter, Nazara Technologies reported a net profit of Rs 0.18 crore, down from Rs 9.4 crore in the year-ago quarter.

This was mainly due to a Rs 16.87 crore loss from discontinued operations during the quarter, as a result of write-offs in many of the company’s legacy businesses including its real-money gaming business Halaplay.

Revenue from operations was at Rs 266.2 crore for the quarter, down 8 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) from Rs 289.3 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.

For the entire FY24, Nazara posted a net profit of Rs 74.75 crore, up 21.8 per cent Y-o-Y. The profit from its continuing operations increased 41.2 per cent to Rs 89.5 crore in FY24, as against Rs 63.4 crore in FY23. The operating cash flow (pre-taxes) at Rs 131.4 crore in FY24.

Revenue grew 4.3 per cent to Rs 1,138.3 crore in FY24 as against Rs 1,091 crore in FY23

First Published: Jun 06 2024 | 11:41 AM IST